Day 809: Flatline

Flatline is a story all about Clara becoming the Doctor. With the Doctor trapped in the TARDIS for the majority of the story, we're left with Clara to take the driving seat for the adventure. And she settles into the role well, flashing about her psychic paper and the sonic screwdriver without any inhibitions about the responsibility that she now has. She even gets herself a companion, with the new character of Rigsy. As the Doctor says at the conclusion of the story "You were an exceptional Doctor, Clara" further showing Clara's evolution as a character into a secondary Doctor. But then the Doctor goes and follows that up.

"Goodness had nothing to do with it", the Doctor says, right at the conclusion of the story. The concept of being the Doctor is not connected with being good in any way, as the Doctor is realising over the course of this series. Looking at it through what Clara's doing, that become even more clear. Faced with this power of becoming the Doctor, she falls into the same grey areas of morality that the Doctor does, wandering around the adventure without really caring for what happens as a result of it, providing that the ending turns out well.

Note, for instance, that she spends the majority of the episode lying to everyone around her. She lies both to the Doctor and Danny about her situation with them, telling the Doctor that Danny is fine with her travelling in the TARDIS whilst telling Danny that she has given up on TARDIS travelling altogether. She also lies when she introduces herself to people to further her own ends. To be fair to her, these lies can be clearly read in the way that she intends them to be read: harmless words that end up helping the people in question. But that moral grey area is far more visible when we see the fact that she tells the people that she meets that she can save them all, and advises them to help her. She knows that she can't save them all, and indeed half of the supporting cast die as a direct result of meeting her. But she lies to them because she sees them as useful, and she needs to keep them onside even in the worst of times. And the story dares to reward her for it, openly seeing the decision that she makes as a good one and failing to blame her for it, a direct contrast with the way in which the story reacted to the Doctor lying in Into the Dalek as he knowingly sent someone to his death so that he could study the Dalek more closely.

It's all very interesting to see how these things are developing, and of course they will develop further over the rest of Clara's time both with the Doctor and as the Doctor. Because whilst it's all well and good to see Clara take the role of the Doctor in a story that's a relative romp, it's far more interesting to see her as the Doctor in a darker story, which we'll see in a week or so.